


Dibs

by sweet775



Category: How I Met Your Mother
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canada, Casual Sex, F/M, Het, One Night Stands, Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-23
Updated: 2011-12-23
Packaged: 2017-10-27 21:35:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/300281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweet775/pseuds/sweet775
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>S1 Alternate. Barney sees her first.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dibs

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Measured](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Measured/gifts).



In retrospect, it was all Ted’s fault.

After all, if he hadn’t been such a girl about Marshall and Lily’s engagement (which was horrifying, but for totally different reasons), they wouldn’t have been in MacLaren’s that particular night. Barney wouldn’t have been so busy looking for a girl for Ted, and would have walked off with another one hours before. But like a good friend, he was acting as wingman for the night, and was still looking on Ted’s behalf when she walked in. Once he saw her, all thoughts of being a good wingman went out the window.

 _“Hey, Ted. Ted.” Barney nudged his friend and jerked his head in the direction of the tall brunette at the bar. “Dibs.”_

 _Ted gave a sigh of exasperation. “Really?”_

 _“Yes, dibs. I mean, look at her!”_

 _“That’s my problem, I was,” said Ted glumly. “Can’t you pick someone else?”_

 _“Well, you should have called it first. Hey, I’m your wingman, not dead.” Barney grinned. “Check this out, Mosby, it’s not every day that you get to learn from the master.”_

 _“No, but it’s disturbingly often,” Ted muttered as Barney sauntered over to the bar._

This little exchange had led him to his current position, which was underneath the brunette engaging in the horizontal mambo at its finest. Well, he was horizontal, anyway. She was riding him with more energy than he had ever seen from a girl before, giving him a spectacular view of her breasts- when his eyes were open, that is. Her body seemed to move with his in perfect coordination, up and down, up and down. An athlete, he thought- it seemed the best explanation for her stamina and skill. He had been working at her with his hands for several minutes now, and if her uneven breathing was any indicator, she clearly appreciated it.   
“Keep going,” she said, and he increased the speed of his fingers. She in turn kept up the pace with a series of strong thrusts. As she leaned in, her long dark hair brushed his chest, teasing him, and he closed his eyes and imagined where he would feel it next.

With a cry, she came, and he loved every second of it, the expression on her face, the smell of sex and sweat, his own orgasm a few moments later. Even with all the pleasure they could take from the inevitable conclusion, he was sorry to see it end.

“You have- great hands,” she said as she lay back next to him.

Barney laughed. “One of my many excellent attributes.”

“Modesty being among them,” she quipped.

“Of course.”

To his surprise, she got up and began to get dressed almost immediately. Clearly, he wouldn’t have to deal with a clinger this time. He liked her already. What was her name again? He tried a wild guess.

“Hey, Rebecca-”

She frowned. “Robin.”

“What?”

“It’s Robin.”

“Oh. Right. Sorry.” He had been with a Rebecca last week. Great tits, but had a desperate vibe. It was an easy mistake.

Oddly enough, Robin didn’t seem to mind, which was a first. “Well, I don’t know your name, so I guess that’s fair.”

“I’m Barney.”

“Good to meet you, Barney.” She had a firm handshake- another point in her favour. “My friends are going to hate me for ditching them. But honestly, sometimes you just have to go for it. With no bullshit, you know?”

“Truer words were never spoken,” said Barney. It was pretty damn close to his own philosophy. Hell, she could almost be a bro.

Robin finished buttoning her jacket and gave him one last kiss. “I had a great time.”

“Same here. Have a good night.”

“Good night.” She shut the door behind her, but before Barney had time to even get up, the door opened again and she poked her head in.

“Oh, by the way – nice porn display. Audacious.” And she was gone again. He heard the front door click shut, and knew he was alone.

Barney blinked.

He had just had the perfect hook-up.

-

Of course, he didn’t dwell on it very long, because Barney Stinson did not cling on principle, so it took him some time to figure this out. At first, carnal pleasure seemed to have the same appeal it always had- and he took advantage of it pretty often.

But after a few clingers, a resident of the Shelley Gillespie Zone, and several pleasant yet uninspired encounters, he realized that something had changed. The sex was satisfying, but it wasn’t. Sure, it felt great. But he couldn’t get the same connection going- couldn’t find Robin’s energy and wit and sense of joie de vivre. He and Robin had been compatible, not in a girly feelings way (he hastened to say), but in a way that none of the other women could replicate. Something about her just- worked. And, he finally admitted to himself, he wanted to feel her hair on his skin again.

Ted moped over his lost chance for a couple of weeks before Barney took him to Philadelphia and made him forget it. There was something about licking a national landmark that really put everything else into perspective. Or at least, it did for Ted. He found Victoria a few months later, making him a goner in Barney’s eyes anyway.

Barney never managed to run into Robin again. Once, he saw her walking five dogs in a park, but he was busy trying to convince a blonde that yes, he was a real private eye (who would thoroughly investigate all of her mysteries). For a moment, he had paused and considered going up to her again. He could have another fantastic night like that one. Or he could explore the unknown with this blonde. Maybe she was the best in New York. Or the world. Maybe she made Robin look like a demented troll. In the end, he had no choice but to opt for possibility over familiarity. He couldn’t remember the last time he had slept with the same girl twice. It was the Barney Stinson way.

The blonde turned out to be hot but boring, like so many others he had had recently. It was obvious what the problem was. He had to step his game up, and bring in more and more hook-ups to try to top the Robin encounter. There was no reason to get stuck on one girl like this. It would be like eating one dish from a buffet, and that was no way to live. If he could bring in enough girls to block that memory, the rut would be gone, he was sure of it.   
About six months after meeting Robin, Barney noticed her on TV, reporting on a dog who had won the lottery. When he had first seen her, he had almost dropped the remote. Her direct stare into the camera took him back to the way she had looked at him at the bar, beckoning him with her eyes, uncompromising and flirtatious in one look.

 _“Come here often?” he had started._

 _“You’ll have to do better than that,” she said, but a smile twitched at her lips._

He had.

When it was the right time of night, and he was home, and he didn’t have company (which was less and less likely these days), he would switch to Metro News 1. Recreated in enormous detail on screen, she seemed to be back in the room with him- and her hair looked as if he could reach out and touch it once again.

“Why do you always have that channel on?” Ted asked once.

“It’s default,” said Barney as he quickly changed it to the game.

Every once in a while, he would see a woman with long dark hair at MacLaren’s. Each time, Barney imagined going up to her, charming her into his home, and having the perfect night all over again. But she would inevitably turn around and prove to be someone else, quashing his fantasy. Robin had not come back to MacLaren’s since that night.

And he wouldn’t have asked her again, anyway. Honest.

-

After a few years - after Victoria had returned from Germany and married Ted, and after Marshall and Lily had broken up, reunited, married and moved to the suburbs – Barney noticed that Robin had disappeared from Metro News 1. Something in him wanted to investigate, try to find where she had gone, but he held back. It had been one fantastic night. That was all it was, and all it would ever be. He had had encounters almost as good since, and the winner was probably just around the corner.

Much to his chagrin, one day his job took him to Toronto. It was one of those shady cross-border deals – something to do with fish – but all that was required of Barney was charm, which was his specialty. He had never really liked Canada, but he could tolerate it for a few days.  
With a couple of hours to kill before his meeting, he was lying on his bed in the hotel room, flicking through the channels. And there, reporting on a story about the Prime Minister’s aide or something (who really cared?), was Robin Scherbatsky, charming correspondent at the CBC and the woman who had occupied his sex life for the past three years.

And suddenly he thought- no, knew- that this was the time. He had happened to be in Toronto on this night, at this hour, watching this channel, and she had appeared. Lily would have called it fate, but he knew better. It was, simply, an opportunity. To hell with his Stinson principles. He was going to see her again, and bring back that night. When he had accomplished that, she could go back to his memories where she belonged, and he could move on to other adventures. And, you know, he’d get another night of awesome sex out of it. That was always a bonus.

In true Barney Stinson fashion, he began to plot it out. He could be a Canadian Congressman willing to give her the, ahem, full story. The set-up almost wrote itself. Why- she didn’t know he was Canadian too? What a surprise!

After a quick search - during which he found out that Canada didn’t have congressmen and the CBC played fast and loose with their reporters’ contact information – he had a phone number in his cell and a suitable cover story. All it would take was one phone call, and Robin and all that came with her would come back again. (She wouldn’t say no. Not to Barney Stinson.)

His thumb wavered over the keypad for a moment- and then he put the phone down.

Barney did not dwell. Barney did not cling. He did not revisit old flames, or stick with current ones. And he certainly didn’t spend three years obsessing over one particularly attractive brunette. After all, he wasn’t Ted. He had awesome, legendary encounters, left them behind when the door closed, and moved on to the next, as was only right for a man of his considerable prowess. Tonight, he would do the same- and forget about trying to duplicate what couldn’t be.

Instead, after his meeting, he went to a club and picked up a perky redhead from Ottawa, one who did buy the story about the Prime Minister’s aide. They had a good time, which he described (in exaggerated terms) to Ted a few days later. Back in New York, he returned to his usual habits and didn’t regret a thing.

And after that, he never saw Robin again.


End file.
